1015-1135 LAN
If traveling has taught me anything, it's that expectations should always be managed; every trip has a low point. It's simply inevitable. The secret is, if you're lucky you can pick out the low point and then know with confidence that everything that comes after is all uphill.
I'm hoping that these past two days have been the low point of my trip... instead of medically volunteering out in the urban jungle of Cusco, I've been sitting at home unable to eat or move more than 50 feet away from a toilet (apparently my body senses when I've stepped out of range and immediately makes me regret it). Luckily, Máximo Nivel has an on-call physician who I called when I finally decided I could take no more. Dr. Grover came over and did a full exam on me and told me that most likely I ate or drank something contaminated that had set up shop in my body and was making me pay.
While he was examining me, I learned just how different the medical environment here in Cuzco is. When the doctor went to take my pulse-ox (the percent of blood that is saturated with oxygen) it registered at 89%. I jumped at seeing this number, because back home, if a patient had something an O2 Sat like this it would mean they have something wrong and need to be bagged or put on oxygen immediately. Pretty much anything less than 96 or 97 indicates something is going on. The doctor, sensing my immediate fear, however, jumped in and told me that I have nothing to worry about. Apparently, because of the high altitude and lack of oxygen a healthy saturation is 86-91. This is so different from home it surprised the hell out of me. The doc actually put the sensor on his finger- he's lived here his whole life- and he only had 91. No wonder I'm constantly so winded up here!
Anyway... I've just been sitting at home, sleeping a lot, and taking the medications that the doctor prescribed me. Finally today I think I have turned the corner slightly as my nausea has curbed a lot. It's been rough, being sick away from home. Last night I was pretty down and pretty homesick, wishing that I could get well on my own terms and not at the mercy of another country's. As Jenna reminded me, though, this is part of the experience... and while I wanted to kill her at the time :-), she was absolutely correct. Hopefully I can stay well for the rest of the trip!
While sitting at home, I took the time to read a lot more of my travel guides on Peru. After doing that, I decided that I am going to take a few days at the end of my trip to explore the country's capitol of Lima. While I was only going to fly straight through there, I have now arranged to fly from Cuzco to Lima 2 weeks from today and then spend 4 days in Lima before flying home. I'm really excited for this and I think I'll get a lot out of it.
Well I'm gonna stay in and watch movies with friends tonight and not push it by going out. Tomorrow night is the Maximo Nivel monthly party so I'm going to try and save my energy for that.
Talk to you soon
Greg
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